Syed Faraz Ahmad is a PhD student in Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. He was born in a village in eastern India and grew up in both rural and urban settings across the country, an experience that shaped his approach to language not merely as a communicative tool but as a lens for understanding power, identity, and social stratification. His research interests include language and semiotics, multilingualism, linguistic surveillance, the politics of multiscriptality and linguistic landscape, and the relationship between language and state power in contexts of violence. His current doctoral research focuses on the linguistic and political anthropology of multilingualism in religiously segregated urban pockets in western India, exploring how marginalized communities use language to survive, re-negotiate space, and contest exclusion. Prior to joining Penn, he conducted ethnographic research in Northeast India (Meghalaya) with the indigenous Khasi community, examining expressives and ideophones through the frameworks of language ideology and language socialization.